


Profile Pic

by mosylu



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Caitlin's Dating Profiles Need Help, F/M, Iris is wise, Listen to Iris you dummies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22792270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: Helping Caitlin out with pictures for her dating profiles, Iris notices something very interesting.
Relationships: Caitlin Snow & Iris West, Cisco Ramon/Caitlin Snow
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	Profile Pic

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who has two thumbs and hates both taking pictures and online dating???
> 
> Written for accawabba21 on Tumblr, who prompted me with: "It's really not that complicated" and specifically requested Iris being wise.

Iris swiped through Caitlin’s pictures. “Mmmfff. Mmmm. No. Oh, lord.” She held up Caitlin’s phone. “What were you thinking with this one?”

“That it was sexy,” Caitlin mumbled.

“What?” Cisco said, popping his head up from where he was tinkering with the guts of something tiny and mechanical. He had on magnifying goggles that made him look like Maz Kanata from the new Star Wars movies. “Can I see?”

“No,” both Iris and Caitlin said in concert, and he shrugged and went back to his tiny gadget. 

Iris said to Caitlin, “The expression on your face looks like you’re being drawn and quartered.”

“They’re not looking at my face.”

“Do you want a guy who’s not going to be looking at your face? You put this on your profile, even buried, and it’s going to be dick pics all day long, trust me.”

“Troof,” Cisco called out. “Listen to Iris. She is wise.”

“Thank you,” Iris told him. She looked back at Caitlin. “Unless that’s what you want? A bunch of dick pics?" 

"Ugh. No, you’re right.” She slouched in her chair. “Get rid of it.”

Iris deleted the offending picture and leaned forward. “Okay, I’m going to be very blunt, these are all awful. If you go fishing with these, awful is what you’re gonna catch.”

“Well, that’s why I asked you to look over them.”

“We’re starting over. I know you take good pictures. I’ve seen them. Can I open your photos?”

“Go ahead,” Caitlin sighed. “Nothing incriminating.”

Iris swiped through the roll. “Aww, that’s a nice shot. Look at that smile. Why didn’t you use that?”

“It’s also got Barry, Ralph, and Cisco in it,” Caitlin said. “They say not to use group pictures, especially with men.”

Cisco coughed, “Heteronormative,” into his work bench.

“I’m not denying that, but it’s still good advice,” Caitlin said.

Iris investigated her selfies. They were all as bad as the ones she’d used in her profile - stiff, self-conscious, the smiles pasted on like Caitlin had practiced them in the mirror. 

“We’re just going to have to take more,” Iris told her, and even though Caitlin protested, she maneuvered her into place in a spot with a nice background and good light. “Let’s try a few face snaps, okay?”

But no matter what they tried, Caitlin came out awkward in all of them. When they switched to full-body shots, she arranged herself as if her own body was a mannequin in a store, and the end result was about the same. 

Iris lowered the phone. “What’s the problem?”

“Sorry!” Caitlin said. “I’ll do better. Give me a moment. Okay.” She struck a pose and smiled brightly.

Iris took a couple more snaps, then shook her head. “This is the exact same problem you had with the selfies. Look.” She handed her the phone, and Caitlin swiped through them.

“There’s just so much to think about,” she said plaintively. “How to hold my head so I look natural, and my arms so I look cute. And if I smile too widely then my eyes kind of scrunch up and disappear into my cheeks, but if I don’t smile at all I look mean.”

"Uh, question,” Cisco said. “How many articles titled ‘The best online dating profile picture’ did you read?”

“They weren’t _all_ called that,” Caitlin mumbled.

“My case, it rests,” Cisco muttered to Iris.

“Maybe we should get Kamilla to come in and take these,” Iris mused. “I mean, she’s the professional.”

“No!” they both yelped.

“I mean, she’s so busy,” Caitlin said. “I would hate to bother her.”

“And, you know, portraits aren’t, like, her _thing,”_ Cisco added.

“Okay, okay,” Iris said, smothering her smile. She’d kind of thought that would be the response. “Let’s try a few more.”

They were still awful, and Iris shook her head. “You need to relax. Forget about all your body parts and what your face is doing. Just be Caitlin.” She tried a few more shots.

“Mmm, no,” Cisco said. “Mind if I try?”

“Knock yourself out,” Iris said, holding out Caitlin’s phone. 

But Cisco tugged his own out of his back pocket. “I really prefer my own equipment for high art,” he said, making Caitlin giggle.

Iris leaned against the console, idly swiping through Caitlin’s photo roll, going back to the best shots. Most of them were group pictures where she didn’t even seem aware of the camera. She considered cropping a few, but when she tried, the quality of the picture itself went downhill. 

She gave up and swiped back to the set she’d just taken. Like always with Caitlin, her brain was getting in the way as she tried to take something specifically to put on a dating profile. Studying the careful smile and the wooden poses, Iris bet she was thinking all about whatever faceless men were out there, judging her without ever having met her.

She was still stiff and awkward now, but Cisco moved around her, acting like a fashion photographer. “That’s it. Yeah. Now gimme girl next door? Oh, the light on those cheekbones, baby!”

Iris noticed he was taking very few pictures, even though he hammed it up. But every so often his finger would tap the screen. 

“Now, I’m gonna need sultry, sultry, sultry -”

“Cisco!” Caitlin laughed, and Cisco snapped one last shot.

“There,” he said, holding it out to Iris. “What do you think?”

Iris swiped through his shots. They were all cute - much cuter than the ones where she’d been behind the camera. But the last one was perfect. Caitlin was smiling, clearly not minding that her eyes were squinching up and her body wasn’t held at the perfect angle. She looked pretty and happy and approachable. “This one,” Iris said, holding it up to show Caitlin.

“Oh! That is nice.”

“See?” Cisco said, tapping his phone a few times. In Iris’s hand, Caitlin’s phone buzzed with a picture text. “It’s not that complicated.”

Caitlin smiled at him, and Iris suddenly realized the one thing that all the best pictures of Caitlin had in common.

Cisco had been in all of them.

“No,” she murmured. “It’s really not.”

FINIS


End file.
